


What's Dead and Buried

by Nautilusopus



Series: The Number I [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Neglect, Cloud's mother tries but she's kind of bad at this, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Nibelheim, Not Actually Imaginary Friends, Past Domestic Violence, Pre-Nibelheim Incident, So many OCs, Vincent being terrible with kids, but i really liked the concept, can be enjoyed without knowledge of The Number I, dirge and crisis core are not canon, future updates should fix that, he's five, including cloud, literally just chapter 18, little kids being assholes, not with cloud though i swear, screw that noise, technically a companion piece, technically this violates my Rule as of right now, that's gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 09:45:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13361961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: Cloud finds a not-quite-dead body in the basement of Shinra Manor. It wants nothing to do with him. Cloud, being five, does not much care.(Part of The Number I but published as its own standalone story for Reasons.)





	What's Dead and Buried

**Author's Note:**

> So... obviously this is part of The Number I, but I've actually been sitting on this little plotlet for quite a while, and actually writing that story out made me want to come back to it at some point. Plus, a lot of fic kind of forgets that there were actually reasons Cloud had no friends and just makes him a happy bouncy angel child, which I feel does him a disservice. Cloud was That Kid. You know the one. 
> 
> This thing is definitely getting more visitation later on, so for now I'm planting my flag in the idea.

Cloud didn’t stop running long enough to check if his toes stung because there was a rock in his shoe, or because snow had seeped in through the holes in the leather. Marcus, the butcher’s son, thundered behind him, yelling words Cloud knew neither one of them was allowed to say. Marcus yelled them anyway because he was a big dumb baby that did things he wasn’t supposed to do and threw tantrums about little things like Cloud biting his arm.

They were well outside town now -- Cloud went exploring near the base of the mountain all the time, but this was the first time he had come this far. Of course, this was also the first time he’d challenged someone to a fight directly and scheduled a meeting place for it. They’d been pretty evenly matched, as far as he was concerned. His own face was bloodied and his nose was almost assuredly broken, and Marcus was seven years old, two years his senior, but Marcus was probably hurting just as bad from his bite, maybe.

Perhaps it was a good thing he was smaller, he thought, as he managed to duck into a dead thornbush. He managed to barely slip under the branches, which formed a natural arch, but Marcus gave up after scraping his forehead against the brambles and deciding it wasn't worth the trouble.

Cloud stayed there for what felt like an eternity, too afraid to come back out. If he went back to town, Marcus and his friends would find him and kill him and feed him to their dogs, like the ‘taians did to Shinra soldiers they caught. Marcus had certainly threatened as much. Wutai dogmeat was a favourite threat of his. “Bargain child” another, which Cloud didn’t really understand yet, but made Ma really angry when she heard it. Cloud thought being a bargain child would be kind of neat. If Ma got him from the Fae, that’d make him pretty special, but every time he asked Ma told him to _not_ ask ever again. He didn’t see why -- being a present from the Fae would be way better than having anything to do with Father. At least he didn’t have to see him anymore.

(It was another two years before Cloud began to guess as to why asking about Father might not have been well-received. It was another nine before he began to wish he’d never wondered in the first place.)

It was so cold out, though. He’d need somewhere to hide, just for a little while, until he could sneak back home. Hopefully Ma wouldn’t worry too much while he was gone. Ma _always_ worried.

He wandered through the snow for a while -- his hands began to hurt, and he found himself wishing for the fire materia Ma kept at home. His own innate magic hadn’t manifested yet, but Cloud hadn’t ever heard of someone’s innate magic being Become Dry and Warm. Then again, stranger things had happened.

Maybe it would soon, though. Maybe he was actually dying horribly right now and his body would notice before he did, and soon he’d be able to fly and throw cars and set fire to Marcus’s stupid face.

He was so wrapped up in his car-throwing, Marcus-smashing fantasy he almost didn’t notice when the grass under his feet gave way to cobblestones. He looked up to see he was shockingly close to the old Shinra mansion.

Maybe he could go inside.

Maybe it was really haunted.

Maybe he’d meet a ghost.

Maybe he’d make friends with a ghost, and the ghost would come back to town with him and kill Marcus and Johnny and Oskaar and Argos and the stupid mayor and his dumb baby daughter (who was a year younger than him and only four and practically an infant as far as Cloud was concerned) and everyone else but him and Ma.

Cloud couldn’t get himself into the mansion fast enough.

The doors to the front, frustratingly enough, were locked. So were the windows. For an abandoned mansion the place sure was well-maintained. There were rumours it wasn’t abandoned, and some Very Important Lady from Shinra still worked here. Cloud was willing to bet she was another ghost.

So, he was forced around to the back of the building, where he found a wooden door to a root cellar. The wood was rotten and riddled with damp, and even pulling with his numb fingers it easily gave way.

The basement of the mansion was still chilly, but it stung much less than the thin Nibel air. As soon as the doors were shut behind him, he peeled off his soaked shoes. Even the cold stone floor was warmer than the snow. He crept down the dark hallway, his teeth still chattering.

There were lights in the ceiling that were still on, which was odd for an abandoned haunted mansion. The hallway was lined with doors, but everything behind them was dark. Cloud felt a prickle of fear in his gut, and ran past them as quickly as he could, for fear that he would accidentally look in one and something would look back, and then it would see him, and…

Cloud couldn’t think of anything scarier than having it look at him.

One of the doors was wooden, and didn’t have a spooky window on it. It too was old and rotten, and gave way with a firm push. He shut himself inside the room, where none of the window doors would be able to look at him, and turned to look at his surroundings.

There were boxes everywhere here. Some of them were wooden crates; some of them metallic cylinders lining the wall; a couple were just ordinary cardboard, stacked on shelves and numbered. But there were a few laid out on the floor that almost looked like coffins.

Cloud swallowed and contemplated if it was better to get killed by a ghost or by Marcus.

He stared at the box. He felt like the box was staring back at him. The seconds crept by as he felt himself flinching at every scratch in the walls or drip from the ceiling.

Well, if something was going to kill him, he was going to know what. He marched over to the box and, with some difficulty, shoved the lid open. Then he screamed and jumped back.

There was a corpse in the box. A fresh one, given that it had all its skin on, but deathly pale, with matted, unkempt corpse hair. And glowing red corpse eyes.

That wasn’t right.

The pale man sat up and turned to look directly at Cloud, still standing there, soaking wet and empty-handed save for his drenched shoes.

Cloud began to cry.

He realised he wasn’t dead yet a moment later when the pale man spoke to him directly.

“Was it you who roused me from my nightmares?”

"I didn't mean to!" he blurted. The corpse stared at him blankly, and a metal hand emerged from the casket and rested on the edge. Cloud swallowed. Maybe it didn't speak Nibeli. It certainly hadn’t spoken it and it was staring at Cloud expectantly with its dead corpse eyes.

“I didn’t mean to,” he managed to squeak out, this time in Standard Continental. “I don’t wanna die. I-I’ll -- I’ll fight you.”

“Unnecessary,” said the pale man. “Leave this place. I shall return to my slumber.”

And then he lay back down and shut himself into the coffin again.

Cloud stopped crying right then and there out of sheer confusion.

He stared at the coffin, wiping his nose off on his sleeve.

He got up on his toes and shoved the lid off again.

The pale man continued to lie there, and Cloud wondered if he hadn't imagined the whole thing. Very carefully, he reached in and prodded his face. A red, glowing eye cracked open and stared at him. Cloud stared back.

"...Why are you going back to bed?"

The pale man continued to lay there, but Cloud held his gaze. He did not answer, so Cloud tried another question.

"Who killed you?"

And when he got tired of waiting for an answer for that one:

"What's your name? My name's Cloud."

The pale man sat up very, very slowly, and Cloud took a step back.

"Why have you come here?" said the voice. He sounded like a corpse, too -- deep and gravelly.

Cloud swallowed. "I'm exploring," he said. "I'm an explorer."

"You are much too young to be any sort of employed guide," said the pale man. Cloud glared at him.

"Well, I am! Maybe I'm just really good, so they hired me early! You just died before they announced it. I was on the news."

The pale man blinked, at a loss for words.

"I came here looking for materia," continued Cloud. "To use in the war."

"...What war?" said the pale man, a hint of curiosity creeping into his voice.

"The war against the 'taians," said Cloud. "I been finding rare materia for Shinra to use. I'm a professional materia finder. They been saying they need their secret weapon to win. That's me."

The pale man was regarding him with an odd look in his eye. "It is indeed a grim day for our nation, that they would require the use of children to win their battles for them."

"I'm old enough to fight," said Cloud, his anger bubbling to the surface again. "I been fighting just before I got here. I --"

He looked around and snatched a rounder chunk of concrete off the ground in front of him, and before he even began to consider doing anything else, threw it at the pale man's head.

"That was materia that I find!" he yelled. "It was magic, and now you're gonna die again!"

"That was a stone," said the pale man dryly. "It has no magical properties whatsoever. Leave me to my atonement." And with that, he pulled the lid of the coffin over himself again and closed it with a slam.

Cloud's eyes were filling with tears again, but this time it was out of anger and humiliation. Not even the stupid basement zombie thought he was anyone worth being.

He'd show him. He'd go find some materia right now.

"Right now" didn't happen until three days later. Partially because Cloud forgot, because Ma was tired and forgot to buy groceries again, so Cloud had to sneak into the back room of the general store and take some himself. He tried to go to school, too, but the first day back he decided he had better things to do than avoiding every other person in his class and the stupid teacher that liked him about as well as they did. Instead of attending class the next two days, he spent time combing through the caves littering the base of Mount Nibel. Most of the locals didn't bother with the mountain much, because it was supposed to be the gateway to the land of the dead (which Cloud had just apparently proven was true). But Cloud didn't have much to do in the town besides watch other people that were stupider and meaner than him enjoy themselves, so he'd taken to entertaining himself elsewhere.

"Wake up," said Cloud three days later, staring at the coffin in the basement. The pale man didn't respond, so he set down his bag with a grunt and shoved the lid off again. The pale man was indeed there, and his eyes opened and fixed on Cloud, this time regarding him rather coldly.

"I brought materia," he said, grabbing his bag and dumping the contents out onto the floor. There was now a small pile of stones of various shapes, colours, and sizes in front of him. Some he'd selected because they looked round enough. Others he thought just looked nice. "So this proves it."

He held up the first one, which was in fact an actual materia: fire, and belonging to his mother so they could light wood for the stove and heat up bathwater. "This is Ultima. I killed a dragon for it."

The pale man continued to glare at him. "You are four years old."

"I'm five and a half!" snapped Cloud, "And -- and screw you!" Ma wasn't here to hear him swear. He could swear all he wanted. The thought filled him with courage, and he pressed on. "Shinra hired me to kill the dragon and get the materia for me."

The pale man bristled. "Shinra?"

"Yeah. They're there to civilise the 'taians. There's a big war over it now. I'm helping!"

"You would do well to stay away from Shinra, Cloud," warned the voice, and Cloud realised it was the first time he'd used his name.

"Why?"

"The company is not what they seem. They cannot be trusted."

"You're just jealous because I'm a famous materia finder and you're dead." Cloud picked up another rock. "Did Shinra kill you?"

The pale man frowned. "Why have you returned here?"

"To show you all my materia. So, this one," said Cloud, reaching for a round stone he'd found inside one of the caves, "this one is Earth, and you can tell because it's brown."

"That is patently false."

" _You're_ patenly stupid." He picked up another rock -- a big white one that reminded him a little of an egg. "And this one's ice -- and it's a summon. An ice summon."

"Summon materia are red."

"Well, this one is white, from the ice. It's extra-rare."

"You have disturbed me to lie about a pile of stones."

"But I found --"

"Leave this place."

And Cloud did leave, but not before throwing his ice summon materia at the pale man, where it missed by a good two feet. The pale man didn't even flinch.

He needed to find better stones, was the problem. Or maybe even more real materia.

It wasn't easy to get materia like that, especially in Nibelheim. He had to wait until the general store closed again, and then sneak in through the window in the back. There was a tiny crack in the window sill, enough for someone with very small, bony hands to slip their fingers through and lift the latch. Cloud would use this window if whatever he wanted (usually things like flour or kerosene) were too large to fit inside his coat.

(Sixteen years later, he would comb his hands over the windows of a building very much like this one while a stranger told him that there had never been any holes of any kind anywhere.)

They really only had two kinds here -- fire, and a remedial materia known for dealing with various poisons and minor curses. One for withstanding vicious Nibeli winters, the other for dealing with vicious Nibeli wildlife. Ma already had fire. So Cloud stole healing.

Nobody at school the next day could prove he stole anything, but everyone suspected him anyway. It went about as well as it always did, but at least this time everyone else wasn't around to watch Johnny give him a black eye and a fat lip. Which was good for Johnny, too, because this time Cloud got in a real good bite, and nobody bothered to chase him this time.

He got some rocks from Mount Nibel, too. They probably _were_ magic. Cloud always felt like he was being watched whenever he went near the mountain.

Cloud shoved the lid off the pale man's casket without bothering to announce his arrival this time.

"Why do you continue to return here?" he said, and though his face remained as impassive as ever, Cloud was pretty sure he was angry.

"Well... you don't have anyone else to talk to, right? So... I thought maybe you'd get lonely," said Cloud, nodding sagely.

"Go away."

"No. I brought more materia this time." He dumped his bag of rocks out again, and held up the healing materia.

"This one is extra special. It grants wishes."

"There is no such materia."

"You just haven't heard of it. I discovered it myself. And -- and I wish you'd come back to the village with me, and come with me to class," said Cloud, staring at the pale man expectantly.

"No."

"I did it on the wish magic, so you have to."

"I do not," said the pale man said sharply, and Cloud recoiled and fell silent. " You seek to distract yourself from some greater unpleasantness by disturbing my rest and fabricating stories about your employment for a war machine despite your young age. You stand to gain nothing by retreating into a false reality, and you are beyond help if you believe you can avoid confronting your situation, whatever that may be, by pretending there is not one. Do not return here again."

Cloud was silent for several moments. He heard the whoosh of a cloak and realised the pale man had stepped out of his coffin to retrieve the lid from the floor. Cloud's throat felt painful and hot.

"...Why can't we just pretend?" he asked. "Why do you care so much if I just pretend?" There were tears running down his face now.

"I have never found avoiding the reality of my sins, and of other people's, to be of much use to anyone," the pale man stated simply. He was looking down at Cloud, who had sat down against the side of the pale man's coffin and was beginning to cry harder.

It wasn't fair.

He didn't realise how long the pale man had been staring at him until he heard him move again. He had stepped back into his coffin and was looking at Cloud as impassively as ever.

"...What are some other arbitrary spells you have assigned to these stones?" he heard him ask.

Cloud sniffed in surprise, then reached for a reddish-brown stone. "This -- this one is a summon, like you said. It's even the right colour. I made sure when I found it."

The pale man nodded. "I suppose it is. What would you say it summons?"

"Fenrir."

"Fenrir is not a summon."

"Well, it should be. When I grow up, I'm gonna make a Fenrir summon."

"Summons take thousands of years to coagulate. Sometimes more, if their stories are lesser known."

"Hey pale man, how did you die?"

Cloud watched expectantly as the pale man blinked at the sudden shift in conversation.

"...I tried to interfere with... official Shinra business. Though, technically speaking, I am not entirely dead."

"Well, duh. You're talking. What did you interfere with?"

"...It is not for young ears to know."

Cloud gave him an odd look, then shrugged. "Well, I'm sure you didn't mean it."

That must have been the wrong thing to say, because the pale man abruptly closed his coffin lid again, and Cloud was left staring at it dejectedly.

Cloud didn't visit the pale man again for another week. He wanted to have a good collection of materia ready for him this time. He told Ma about the pale man.

"It's good you've found an imaginary friend," she said, not really looking at him. She was always tired, for as long as he could remember. Tired and nervous and always looking over her shoulder. Cloud didn't remember much from when his father had been around, but he was pretty sure she was like that when he was here too. He didn't really understand it much, though. He remembered feeling that way himself when Father had been around, but now that he wasn't, there wasn’t any reason for them to be like that. But after he left, Ma had only gotten worse. She was a lot younger than all the other mothers in Nibelheim, but she somehow managed to look older than all of them put together.

“He’s not imaginary,” he pouted. “He’s real and I met him. He lives in a coffin.”

Ma looked at him then, as though she wasn’t sure how to respond. “You haven’t been playing in that cemetery, have you?”

“No, I didn’t find him in the cemetery. I found him in a basement.” There wasn’t much point in going to the village cemetery anyway. There were only a few bodies in it so far, and according to Ma, the place was a blemish upon their village. Most bodies had been burnt to ash at the foot of the mountains to return them to the Hearth they’d been made in, but there was a growing trend to just stick them in the ground. Apparently they did it that way in Midgar and Mideel and Gongaga. Cloud thought it was a bit sickening, just leaving corpses in the ground to rot, and Ma was outraged by it (it was one of the many topics Cloud had learned not to bring up around her), but the cemetery kept getting a little bigger each year anyway; just another plot of Shinra land swallowing the village.

“Is he nice?” asked Ma, returning to patching up Cloud’s shoes as best she could.

“No. He keeps telling me to leave. I don’t know why he’d like being dead and by himself. He yelled at me about doing magic.”

"What does he look like?" asked Ma, a note of concern in her voice now. Her accent was much thicker than Cloud's since she'd learned Standard after Nibeli, and not the other way around like him. She still wasn't looking. Not really.

"I'll do a drawing," said Cloud. He sat down in front of their bed and did his best to faithfully recreate the pale man to the best of his ability. When he was done, he held the drawing in front of her face. Ma looked at it for a long time, and then looked at him, still looking as worried as ever.

"That's your friend, sweet?" The worry in her voice was now much more palpable, and Cloud wondered if perhaps he had done something wrong.

"Yes. He's dead. He lives outside the town. He's really angry all the time but he never sounds like it."

"...Just be safe, okay?" said Ma, shaking her head sadly.

He left school early the next day to try and get to the pale man before it got cold and dark. Cloud had been out in the dark many times, setting and checking snares for food, or just hiding from the townsfolk, but it was always nicer to do things with more light. As per usual, the pale man had shut himself inside his coffin, and it took Cloud banging loudly on the roof of it for him to be acknowledged.

"So, if you can walk around and stuff, why do you stay down here?" he asked, when he was halfway through categorising all the different kinds of fire materia he had (there was regular fire and then super fire, and then fission fire, which was different from and even stronger than a Flare spell).

The pale man regarded him thoughtfully for a while before answering.

"I must atone for my sins," he said.

Cloud blinked, nonplussed.

"My crime was one of inaction. I allowed someone I cared for deeply to make a terrible mistake. By the time I interfered, it was far too late to alter the course she had set for herself. She is likely long dead."

"Why didn't you stop her if it was so bad?"

The pale man said nothing, and Cloud got bored of waiting for an answer.

"...So, this one is lightning -- that one's Black magic, because it takes more control than pershison. I got teached that in school --"

"You must keep your loved ones close, lest misfortune befall them as well," said the pale man suddenly. "Do not repeat my mistakes. We must all atone for our sins eventually."

"Er... okay. I'll -- I'll watch out for Ma."

The pale man nodded. "Yes. Mothers should take care of their children."

Cloud was extremely uncomfortable, and politely excused himself. By then it had gotten darker, and he had to create a tiny light in the palm of his hand with the fire materia to see himself home. Ma said he always made the best lights -- nice and steady, and it didn't tire him out for almost four hours. Sometimes five. Cloud wasn't good at that other word he couldn't say, but he was really good at control.

"Ma?" he asked when he got home. Ma was bent over the wash basin, scrubbing it out, which Cloud thought was pointless since they washed themselves in it so it was obviously already as clean as anything could possibly be.

"What is it, sweet?" she said, managing a tired smile.

"What's a sin?"

Ma dropped the sponge she'd been using into the water and fumbled for it, muttering a word Cloud wasn't allowed to say under her breath.

"Who -- where did you hear that word?" she asked.

"The Pale Man told me it. He says we all have to tone for our sins. What's tonement? He said that too."

Ma looked unhappy with him, and Cloud shrank back, swallowing nervously. "I'm sorry," he said immediately.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong. A sin is... a very bad thing."

Cloud nodded in understanding. "He said I should be careful, and that you should look out for me."

Ma's mouth thinned into a line, and she went back to scrubbing immediately. "I don't think you should be spending so much time around the Pale Man, Cloud. He doesn't sound like a happy person."

"He's not. I don't think I ever seen him smile..."

That wasn't right, was it? Maybe the Pale Man didn't like him much. Well... not "maybe". Ma was really the only person that liked Cloud, and the Pale Man acted more like the mayor -- like he was better than Cloud, and wanted him gone as soon as possible. But the Pale Man stayed put, and that was good enough for him.

He tried his best to cheer the Pale Man up after that. He brought even more rocks. Snacks, too -- rabbit jerky and dried berries, preserved for the winter, and once a bit of bread and some honey. The Pale Man never touched any of it. That made sense -- corpses didn't need to eat.

As the weeks piled on, the ground around the pale man's coffin came to be littered with rocks and stones of all shapes and sizes. Cloud visited nearly every day. Ma would ask where he kept going. "Exploring", he would tell her. She didn't exactly approve of him going that close to the mountains, but he'd been out there on his own often enough to catch rabbits for dinner, so she made him promise not to go any deeper than the old bridge. That was fine by him; the mansion wasn't even that far.

Argos from his class picked a fight with him that day, which was unusual, since usually Cloud wound up initiating things in one way or another. But it was a weekend, so he hadn't even been in school. He was in the general store, and Ma had given him a little money from her job to buy something for a change. The owner was watching him like a hawk the whole time, only looking away to recount the money in his drawer before turning his sour, unshaven face back to Cloud. Argos had come in afterwards, with the mayor's daughter and Johnny trailing behind.

Before he had much time to register who was here and why, he was shoved face first into a shelf of candy bars. The owner yelled sharply at them over the counter as Cloud clutched at his nose. It hadn't quite healed from the last time, and now it was sore again.

"What the hell do you think you kids are doing?" the owner barked.

"He was stealing again! I seen him steal!" said Argos. Johnny glanced at Argos in confusion, and the mayor's daughter turned to look at Cloud, scandalised.

"I wasn't this time, honest!" yelled Cloud, and made to lunge at Argos. Before he could get there he and Argos were grabbed by the back of their shirts by the owner.

"Check his pockets! He's a liar!" yelled Argos.

"I en't taken anything! I didn't!"

"Then what's this?" The owner removed a candy bar that Cloud didn't recall being there from his coat.

"He put that in there! I-I didn't take it, I swear! I swear I didn't! I swear I didn't!" Cloud flailed in his grip. "I have money! I swear I didn't!"

"That's my money!" screamed Argos back. "He stole my money from my bookbag!"

"Ma gave it to me! Ma gave it to me because I been good at school!"

"Your ma doesn't got any money because she's a slut!" Cloud wasn't sure what that word meant but it was clear it was an insult.

_"No she's not!"_

_"Yes she is!"_

_"YOUR MA'S A SLUT AND THAT'S WHY SHE WENT AND HAD YOU!"_

By that point the owner was too distracted by the overwhelming cacophony of two five year olds screaming at the top of their lungs to realise he'd let go of both of them, and Cloud threw himself at Argos again. Argos was heavier and succeeded in rolling them both over for easier punching access, but by this time Cloud had gotten quite good at biting.

The mayor's daughter, Tifa, letting out a shriek as Cloud sank his teeth into Argos's hand was what finally got him to look down, and Argos was peeled off him almost as quickly as Cloud himself was hauled to his feet.

"Savage little thieving shrike," grumbled the owner, and before he had time to react he was thrown over his shoulder and carried off.

"Let me go!" he shrieked, kicking at the owner's chest as he felt his pockets being rummaged through. From his elevated position he could see Tifa looking wide-eyed and absolutely horrified with him, and Argos glaring furiously at him through his own angry tears, nursing a hand that was now bleeding quite a bit.

"I'll be returning this money to the young man you've injured," said the owner distastefully, "and having a word with that mother of yours."

"Give it back! It's mine! Ma gave it to me!" he screamed even louder. "The Pale Man will come and kill you if you don't give it back! He'll kill you like he got killed! He got ripped into a million pieces! He'll do the same thing to you! _Give it back!"_

"That's quite enough of that," snapped the owner, and opened the door to a closet. "Now stay put while I fetch the necessary parties."

Cloud was dropped roughly in the closet, and the door was slammed closed in front of him.

 _"Let me out! Ma!"_ His voice pitched into a panic as he began to beat at the locked doors. He heard footsteps moving away from him, and realised a minute later that the store was now empty.

He screamed louder, hoping to be heard. _"Ma!"_ Maybe she would hear him. Maybe she would come get him, like she had before.

"You stay here, sweet, and don't come out until I say it's safe, okay?" he could almost hear her saying. The memory of that night, and the nights after it, were still burned into his brain.

 _"Ma!"_ he sobbed. His hands hurt from beating at the doors. A minute passed, then two, then ten. Ma didn't come. Cloud sat in the corner of the closet as his cries died down into whimpers. Perhaps they'd forgotten he was here. An hour passed. Maybe more. Eventually he just fell asleep from exhaustion.

He was shaken awake by the general store's owner dragging him out of the closet by the arm. Ma was there, looking even more exhausted than usual.

"I have explained the situation to your mother," said the owner flatly. "Your money will be returned to you. But this boy is not to set foot in my store, woman," he added, turning to Ma. "He's caused enough trouble for everyone in this town as it is."

Cloud ran into his mother's legs, and she gave him a short hug before standing to address the owner.

"Mr. Katrinsson, I assure you that --"

"Don't lie to me, woman, I know you put him up to it. You're lucky I don't call the police on both of you. Why don't you earn an honest living like the rest of us, eh?"

Cloud was quiet on the walk home. He felt the eyes on his back, as usual. He kept his face lowered so they wouldn't see how red it was or how badly his nose was running.

"I'm sorry I got you in trouble," said Cloud. "I really en't take anything this time."

"It's alright. I'm making a little more money now, so we'll be okay for a while," she said tiredly. "...The manager said you threatened to kill that boy, though."

"I didn't. I said the Pale Man would rip him to pieces. That's how he died, you know. I'm gonna get him to come kill them both -- him and that dumb baby what always follows him around."

Ma's grip on his hand tightened considerably, and she knelt to address him at eye level. "You can't say things like that to people. It's not nice."

"He said bad things about _you_ ," said Cloud. "I oughta get the Pale Man to kill his mama too."

"Listen, Cloud," said his mother sharply. "He's imaginary. He won't be killing anyone. And you need to stop talking to him." She sounded angry. Cloud hadn’t heard her angry in a long time.

"But..."

"You won't be talking with him anymore, Cloud. Find a new friend. You're getting a bit old for imaginary ones anyway."

"He's real, Ma!" Cloud objected. "He's real, and he --"

"I said that's _enough_!"

Cloud swallowed and nodded, and neither one of them spoke for the rest of the walk. Ma stroked his hair until he fell asleep that night, and hummed a song he'd heard a million times, and he wasn't sure why.

He still made one last visit to the Pale Man.

He had to move quickly, because he suspected Ma had noticed how long he was off "exploring" the base of the mountains these days. It probably wouldn't be long. He wasn't sure what to say anyway.

The Pale Man was asleep, as he always was. Cloud knocked on the lid of the coffin, and then pulled it up when he didn't respond.

The Pale Man opened his eyes and sat up and looked at him irritably, as he always did. Cloud swallowed nervously.

"...Ma doesn't want me visiting you anymore."

"Your mother is wise. Listen to her. You would do well to socialise with children your own age." For an adult, the Pale Man sure could be stupid sometimes.

Cloud rocked himself nervously. He thought words would magically show up now that he was here. Still nothing.

"...You won't forget about me, right? We'll always be friends?"

The Pale Man regarded him coolly. "It would be an embellishment to refer to us as friends. We are not well-acquainted by any stretch of the imagination," he said simply.

"...Oh." He could feel his throat tightening again.

"...But I doubt I will forget about you."

Cloud nodded. It was good enough.

"I got you a present, just to make sure," said Cloud. He reached into his coat pocket and produced the healing materia he'd stolen from the general store weeks ago.

"It's the special wish materia. It really works. Maybe you can use it to bring your wife or whoever back," explained Cloud. He dropped it in the Pale Man's coffin, ignoring his blank stare.

"I'll miss you," said Cloud. The Pale Man nodded.

He stood there for a moment, frozen to the spot. He would have badly liked to lean in, to wrap his arms around the Pale Man's midsection and be held in return. But there was almost a barrier he projected, a kind of intangible energy that told Cloud that he couldn't do that, a feeling that made it somehow impossible. It was an almost physical ache, and as much as Cloud pressed against it, it didn't stop being any less true.

Instead he just turned away and left the basement of Shinra Manor, for what he believed would be the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this please go read the number i  
> i'm dyin here


End file.
